In recent years there has been great interest in providing packaging in which the closure and container combinations which are designed so that the closure can be removed from the container only by special manipulation. In this fashion the packages are considered to be child-safe in that the closures are generally unremovable by children.
In certain cases, however, the provision of a child-resistant packaging is unnecessary such as is the case where harmless substances are packaged in the container. In such a case the provision of the child resistant locking feature is undesirable from the manufacturers standpoint due to the cost of providing especially designed closure elements and from the users standpoint due to the inconvenience which can be associated with child resistant packages. Packaging manufacturers are normally required to maintain an inventory of closures and containers for both the conventional packaging and for the child-resistant packaging configurations. This can lead to problems of having the proper container and closure available for the particular packaging job and also can be expensive in that two separate inventories must be maintained.
Accordingly, it would be highly desirable to have a closure which is provided with one or more closure elements adapted to be used with both the child resistant container and with conventional containers provided with non-locking closure elements.